Chapter Text
It's hard to remember how it even happened — the trail of layers left behind leading to Will's bed.
Coats ripped free of their shoulders and dumped onto the floor, sleeves yanked inside out. Vans and dress shoes kicked off furiously and tumbled into corners barely near the shoe rack. Mike's glasses being knocked crooked by Will's hands invading Mike’s hair, until they're frustratingly tossed away like they deserved punishment for making Will break away from Mike’s mouth for a single moment. Mike couldn't begin to care when he heard the frames clatter against the wall and to the floor — he could hardly care at all when he was left nearly blind.
Like he could see anything other than Will, anyway.
Now he's on his back on Will's bed, beneath him like he always was. Their thin shirts ride up on their stomachs and Mike is far too aware of the smallest sliver of exposed skin making contact with Will’s. Their bodies are shifting upwards, messing up the sheets, and their heads are finding pillows, and it's such a difficult task to do while keeping their mouths connected, but they pursue the crawl clumsily until positioned just right. In the heat of it, Mike daringly reaches for Will's belt to grab onto something stable and pulls him closer with a purposeful yank — and Mike is absolutely done for when a positively improper guttural sound dumps from Will's mouth into Mike’s.
This is when Will pulls back, almost like he's surprised with himself, like his own voice was an alarm waking him up. Mike gets to see as the worry and alertness arrive to his features as quickly as they left him when he kissed Mike first, might he be very clear.
Wide eyed and red in the face, Will looks too tempting to take, blown away and out of breath.
"We have to stop. If this goes any further, then—"
"What, it'll be cheating?"
Mike can't see the logic in stopping now, it's already gone too far. Of course, he has never had a relationship passed whatever it was he had as a kid, so maybe he was a little ignorant to Will's situation, but he feels that line had already been crossed the day Will touched his neck with his fingertips.
But before all that…
Three weeks earlier.
Will’s hands are exactly as Mike remembers them, warm and strong as they work their way up Mike’s spine. His lips are just as he thought they’d be, plush and soft as Mike presses into them with his own, mouth hung loose. Mike catches his lower lip in his teeth and a grateful hitch of breath that comes from Will seals Mike’s fate. Will is addicting, and tangled up in each other’s arms, hands feverishly finding new places to touch and grab onto, Mike is convinced he’d lived a perfectly fowl life up until this point. Will breaks the kiss, heated breaths panting over Mike’s open and expecting mouth, and he’s struck by Will’s hazel eyes, and he’s beautiful, so beautiful it makes Mike crazy.
”Mike…” Will breathes, and he's overwhelming, soft brown hair and pink cheeked and Mike can't see anything else at all. “I’ve wanted to —“
— Mike’s alarm starts blaring and when his eyes shoot open, bloodshot and startled, he’s far too hot, taking a solid five seconds to recognize his own room as he throws off his blanket. With an aggressive slap, the beeping adversary stops once it smashes to his floor and - okay. He’ll need to add new alarm clock to his ever growing shopping list.
He’s pissed off before he’s even cognizant. Which isn’t a rare occurrence in Mike Wheeler’s life.
After some curses below his breath, he rubs both his hands over his face, heart throttling, before he stares upwards, trying to gather himself back into a controlled state. He's exhausted, like he hadn't slept at all, feeling as though he ran a mile as soon as he’d opened his eyes. And his heart throbs an extra beat for something else he doesn’t think about outside of a dream.
It's the same ceiling he's alway known, where he gets lost in the same stains and pieces of dust that cling to the ancient popcorn overhead — not that he can make them out too well with his pitiful vision — as though he can find the answer to his burning question: What the Hell is wrong with you?
He can’t see well, so no answer is found.
Despite it all, Mike’s always known there was something wrong, since he was young, becoming a teenager with the others. Being a freak was the least of his crimes, and the most obvious one he committed, but liking DND and not being popular with girls was nothing compared to this, the thing he's kept under wraps for years, never to be acknowledged by even himself in the darkest most private places of his mind. There were some places he would just never go, a door forever locked and hidden.
Expect, apparently, when he would sleep, the God forsaken sleep meds proving themselves useless.
”Mike!” Karen’s voice calls from downstairs, loud and demanding, such as the Wheeler way. “Are you awake?”
Mike groans and covers his face with his pillow and hopes the day will come when she stops babying him, as he’s a twenty-seven year old published author now, but the woman has never allowed him to forget that he still — lives at home with his parents.
There is something very wrong with Mike Wheeler.
Of course, he catches himself in this thought process, scolds that cruel part of himself that is so insensitive and heartless to decide something so — not bad, is about as bad as "bad" can be.
He thinks of Will, of course, with tears on his cheeks and gasps by his lungs, how terrified he was, stuttering and tripping over his words and baring himself wide open to a room full of eyes. It had been the single bravest thing Mike had ever seen.
"Mike!" Karen screams.
"I'm awake!" Mike screams, as well.
Regardless of how much a burden it seemed, Will wasn't held down by it. He had moved away about nine years ago, went to Pratt Institute in New York, and hasn't come back home since, save for some visits and holidays.
Will wasn't held down by anything at all. Not even Mike.
His hair feels tight and bent flat against his head when Mike sits himself up. He reaches for his bedside table and fumbles for his glasses, examining them in his hand before tucking the left-open arms behind his ears, and now that he can see, the mess of his alarm clock in at least three pieces on his floor greets him a good morning.
Another thing he sees is his daily Haunting Monument, the painting. A daunting, blatant reminder of complicated, old feelings, so lost to time by now Mike doesn’t recall what they should mean to him anymore. It’s hung on the wall between his bed and his desk, brilliantly and meticulously placed where Mike would see it as often as possible.
Despite the thing behaving more like a jump scare at this point and causing heart palpitations every time he so much as glances at it, he can’t bring himself to move it. He can’t even bring himself to look at it long enough to approach it.
He removes himself from his bedroom and to the shower.
Mike still has simple pleasures here in Hawkins, walks around familiar blocks and the old diner he and the Party used to meet up at. And Max, who has become a much closer friend to Mike than he ever imagined she would be. The two always seemed to have bumped heads and gave each other a hard time, but now they were thick as thieves. That's just growing up, Mike always thought.
So, naturally, with the two of them often being the only members of the party around, when Lucas is training or traveling for basketball games and business meetings, they make an effort to meet up at least a couple times a month alone, whether at Mike's place or at Benny's.
Grateful is a word Mike would use to describe how he feels for Max's presence, and although she was not his first choice to be stuck with in this town while everyone else left for busy and fulfilling lives, the two had discovered quickly out of forced proximity that they had a lot more in common than they realized.
They understood each other, in a way, both aggressively alone for the better part of their day by choice. Yes, it was absolutely by choice.
The window between late-winter to early-spring was never a favorite time of year for Mike, but despite the wet grey chill of the small town today, he opts to walk anyway, feeling a desire for air no matter how damp or cold. Nostalgia doesn't fail to hit him regardless, whether he's driving or on foot, his bike having been rusted and in pieces in the garage for the better part of five years. He passes the same curbs, the same puddles, the same fire hydrants, and, as he grows older, he's starting to see more of the same people, retired folks who decide to linger here for the rest of their simple lives, easy, uncomplicated, familiar. Mike relates more and more to them every day. That’s just growing up.
He gets to the diner before Max, somehow, and grabs them a booth by the window and takes a seat. He orders a coffee while he waits, no cream, one sugar.
Maybe he should have realized it sooner, how similar Max and himself are. It makes perfect sense to him now, why they would have bickered so often when they were kids, always offending themselves by the mirrors they held up to each other, or — two sides of the same coin, tossed for luck never to land favorably.
But things were different now, easier, less intense although the insults never let up, which Mike learned to accept. Besides, he feels less alone when he gets some time with her, and he thinks she feels similar. Not that he didn’t like being alone, or anything.
”Oh — excuse me, I’ll get that for you, Miss,” a grown man’s voice offers by the entrance to Benny’s, and Mike’s eyes glance up from his coffee, knowing what he’ll find. Max getting the door held open for her, and people parting a pathway for her to move through. Her white cane held low to the floor.
“Right this way,” their waitress was starting to reach for her arm.
”I got it from here,” Mike cuts in, quick to Max’s side, and the waitress pulls her hand back in faint surprise.
“Forward about five paces, to the left. Booth.” Mike doesn’t need to speak loudly, he knows Max can easily pick his voice out over the chorus of voices and clinking of the diner. He heads to their seats again, and Max follows easily, her cane scanning the floor with small sweeps before it bumps into the booth seat, and she takes her place where she always does, back to the exit, while Mike sits across from her.
”God, you’d think they’d get over it after all this time,” Max grumbles, already put off before breakfast.
”Can you blame them? People just want to make sure Hawkins’ only blind girl feels taken care of.” Of course, Mike doesn’t blame her for resenting the codling. Every day he opens his eyes, though shit as they are, he’s grateful he hasn’t gone completely blind. He can’t imagine what life has been like for Max, but she was another one of the bravest people Mike has ever known. There was a time Mike used to be brave, too, but there hasn’t been any need for such audacity in about a decade.
“Well, this blind girl can walk through a door. It’s not like this place has changed at all, anyway.”
The server approaches their table, and they order their usual. Eggs over easy and sausage with a short stack of chocolate chip pancakes for Max, and a turkey Reuben with a side of normal fries for Mike. Max throws in an order for a chocolate milkshake before the server closes her book, on account of today being special.
Why it’s special: Mike will be leaving for the big city tomorrow on a scheduled book signing event for his debut novel.
Mike asks about home life, living with Lucas, and staying with the Sinclair’s. Max updates on the small changes since they last talked, and shares Erica’s college stories she hears all the time, how incompetent the student body and all the teachers — accept for one — are. That girl is going to be the president, one day, Max is pretty sure, and Mike doesn’t argue. Mike updates about Holly’s recent obsession with astrology, and the books he bought for her next birthday.
The catching up is nice, but the two of them are so much more boring than they used to be. Max doesn’t seem bothered.
Mike isn’t, either. It’s just growing up.
"So, any plans to talk to him?” Max asks, cut and dry as usual. Mike decides to play dumb anyway, only delaying the inevitable.
"Talk to who?" He takes a sip of his coffee, which is mostly bitter.
Max isn't having any of it, and she doesn't break eye contact despite not being able to see. She's never had a problem seeing Mike's bullshitting. Mike knows she never will. "You know who I'm talking about."
Mike places his coffee mug down with more of a clank than he intended, but he feels the abrasiveness is fitting. "So what if I do? No, I don't have plans to talk to him."
"Okay, so you are as dumb as you were last week." Max adjusts in her seat as she shakes her head, eyebrows raising like even she couldn't believe it. "Why not?"
Mike can’t help but roll his eyes. The gesture makes him feel better, at least. “You know why.”
”What, because Will hasn’t written you? What do you think, he just hates you now?”
Mike winces at her words. Well, just one of them. “Look, it’s — complicated, okay?”
“Nothing is complicated. He probably just doesn’t have the time to pen-and-paper you, or doesn’t want to. The city life is hectic, he was never the writer in this relationship.”
Mike blinks, and Max looks confused at his silence, before saying, “ — I’m telling you to call him, idiot.”
Food is being placed in front of them now, and Mike feels relief from the sacred distraction from this conversation, though he’s starting to lose his appetite.
They thank their server, and as soon as she walks away, Max is reaching across the table. Mike turns his plate, aiming his pile of fries to meet her hand. She takes three and bites into them all at once.
“It’s your turn to respond,” she says through her fries.
”What?” Mike scoffs, confused.
”See, this is your problem,” Max drops the fries onto her plate in favor of pointing at Mike, instead. “You suck at having a conversation. Maybe that’s why you haven’t heard from Will, cause it’s been your turn all this time.”
The muscles in Mike’s face tighten, and he knows one day his face will get stuck like this. He doesn’t care, frankly. “It’s not my turn,” he argues stubbornly.
Much like him, Max is just as stubborn when she shakes her head. “You’re full of shit, Wheeler.”
Her milkshake is brought to the table by a passing by bus-boy, which Mike accepts with a nod before placing it between them. He tamps the wrapper down a straw and sticks it into the whip cream, stealing the first sip before pushing it into Max’s waiting hand, making sure the straw is facing her. She scoops a wad of whip cream off the top with another one of Mike’s fries and pops it in her mouth. “Talk to him. For the love of God. Before we’re all estranged forever.”
Mike scoffs, again, and he begins to wonder why he hangs out with Max so often. “Our estrangement is my fault because Will and I aren’t talking,” he vocalizes, so Max can hear how incomprehensible that sounds.
She actually laughs, and it’s the first smile she’s had since entering Benny’s. “No. Our estrangement is your fault because you won’t reach out to Will.”
Mike disagrees, but there’s a new pressing question. “Wait — how is it my fault? Will isn’t the only person in the group. I do my part, I mean I’m — here with you, aren’t I?”
Max gives him a look of pity, and he doesn’t like this look, because pity from Max is never, ever real. “Oh, Mike, I like you and everything,” she says with far too much sarcasm, “but do you really think you and I would be going on regular lunch dates alone if the whole Party were here?”
He should probably be grateful that she is so honest, but he can’t help but feel offended, anyway. Even though he knows she’s right. Mike and Max are about as unlikely as a cat and dog. Shared trauma can do a lot for a relationship. It did wonders for Will and Mike’s.
”Why not?” He argues anyway, and Max rolls her eyes. It’s cool to watch the setting moons, for a fleeting moment.
”You’re impossible. Stay alone forever.” Mike has to laugh, there’s nothing else he can say when she resorts to bullying. He obviously can’t admit to her that he does, in fact, know what she means.
“You’re the glue, you know?” She adds, clearly giving into the guilt of leaving him on an insult, despite the fact that she looks more mad than remorseful. “You’re the heart, after all. Even though I think you’re more of a dick, but whatever little Byers wants.”
It pains Mike every time she brings up the painting. He wishes he never hung it up in the first place — then nobody would have asked about it, and Will would have never timidly explained it to them, and Mike could live just a little less haunted by fewer reminders of its existence. Of his apparent role in the Party. Of how apparently, their estrangement is all his fault.
Of how, apparently, Will viewed him as a leader, so long ago. Mike is tired of reminders.
The two of them finish up their food in silence, and Max — Mike hates admitting — got under his skin. She always does, so it shouldn’t be a surprise, but this time left a mark he knows he’ll go home with and see in the mirror.
Outside, Mike waits with Max at the curb for Mrs. Sinclair to pick her up, hands stuffed into their coat pockets against the chill.
”Look, Mike,” she says, and Mike knows it’s because he’s been quiet, and she’s — she’s trying to help him. He knows. He knows. “Don’t be a lonely asshole in the city, alright? At least try to be a somewhat approachable asshole. One who’s there because of his great achievements.” It’s actually the nicest thing Max has said to him.
”I’ll try, Max,” he gives in, looking over to her, but she doesn’t look back. He knows she doesn’t have to to see him.
Mike's fingers fly across the typewriter. His hands hurt, early onset arthritis likely. Just his luck. His back hurts too, but that isn't new, considering his God awful posture since as long as he can remember.
He doesn’t know why he’s doing it, typing a letter to Will, but he doesn’t let himself think about it. He writes better when he doesn’t think, anyway.
It’s half past ten at night, and Mike is only half packed for his trip. He’s kind of looking forward to the ten hour drive, but at the same time, that amount of time with just his thoughts doesn’t settle his heart any. He needs to sleep, but nothing is ready, so his nerves keep him wide awake.
He finishes his letter. He doesn’t proof-read it. He opens up a drawer to grab a pen to sign it by hand, and the room drops in temperature when he sees them.
Letters. Stacks of them. Hand written, intimate, words that Mike could never say, can never send. Dear Will, adorns the tops of every single one, - Love, Mike tags the bottom corners. Some more recent. Some as old as nine years.
He grabs the pen and slams the drawer.
In the morning, he bids his mother goodbye, who doesn’t let him out of the house without a proper hug. He relents and embraces her and all of her severity before he squirms away while she sings about how proud of him she is.
“I’ll see you in a week,” he promises.
“Don’t forget to call us!” She reminds, and he’s out.
It’s the longest most silent car ride of his life. He progressively gets more and more nauseated as he nears city lights.
The hotel room welcomes him with darkness and silence. He flips on the light switch and makes his judgement of the place. The room is too clean and smells like nothing, but it will be home for the next six nights. He walks by the bed, pulled taught and resembling a blank slate with its white sheets, and dumps his belongings on it.
Calling Max right now just to have a voice in the room might be nice. She told him to call her, anyway, but maybe this is a little too desperate of him, and he should wait a day. He looks at the time, six thirty at night. It’s too early to turn in, and it’s too late to do anything. He’s exhausted. He has a stomach ache. He has a headache. He feels seventy-three.
The curtains let in the dazzle of the city when he pulls them back, looking out over all the impossibly large buildings, and it does nothing to settle his heart rate when he thinks about the likelihood of Will spending his time in any of them. Having a drink at a bar, painting at a lodge, grabbing lunch at a cafe, pouring syrup all over his eggs and not caring who judges him. Mike turns away from the city, facing his empty room. It’s no less empty than his own, and still no more filled with his presence.
Mike approaches the phone. He stares at it. It stares back. He walks away from it.
He takes a shower. He sets the water temperature to lukewarm, just warm enough. He stares at himself in the mirror, all fogged up. He can barely see himself.
He's in sweatpants and a sweater, which keep him from touching the too-pure sheets as he sits on his bed, and stares at the phone once more. It’s seven-o-eight.
The phone stares back.
He picks up the phone and holds it to his ear, and dials Will’s number. He’s never forgotten it. It rings once.
He hangs up.
He sighs before he dials it again.
It rings once. Twice. Three times.
”Hello?” A familiar voice answers.